I am very ignorant when it comes to sign language in general.
Why is it called American Sign Language? Is it based off of English? If so why not English Sign Language?
For example is their a Chinese sign language? Would someone who knows Chinese sign language be able to communicate with an American Sign Language person?
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There are many different sign languages, mostly because there are deaf people in different geographic areas and their “home signs” developed into distinct languages. Nicaraguan Sign Language came about naturally recently, while observed, and is an [interesting case study](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language).
Sign languages are languages. ASL isn’t based on English, it’s a distinct language. It’s related to French Sign Language but not British Sign Language. Its grammar is not English like and apparently has some resemblance to Japanese.
French and American Sign are not mutually intelligible but have enough overlap that maybe, with difficulty, people can get through. Maybe a little bit like French and Portuguese. Because Chinese Sign also descends from French Sign, there’s also a higher chance of being able to painstakingly communicate between ASL and CSL than ASL and BSL, again because sign languages are unrelated to the local spoken language. In fact, learning to read the local language, like English for American signers, requires basically learning another language that doesn’t share vocabulary or grammar with the language used in the deaf community.
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